Joe Paterno's family said the former Penn State coach did not protect Jerry Sandusky. (pennstatelive/Creative Commons)

Paterno’s family members vowed their own investigation of the Sandusky scandal and voiced in a statement released on Monday that Paterno, who died in January at age 85, did not knowingly protect a pedophile, according to the Associated Press.

"We are dismayed by, and vehemently disagree with, some of the conclusions and assertions and the process by which they were developed," family attorney Wick Sollers said in reaction to the report by former FBI Director Louis Freeh. "Mr. Freeh presented his opinions and interpretations as if they were absolute facts. We believe numerous issues in the report, and his commentary, bear further review."

More from the family’s statement in USA Today:

“It is also a matter of record that Joe Paterno promptly and fully reported the 2001 incident to his superiors. It can certainly be asserted that Joe Paterno could have done more. He acknowledged this himself last fall. But to claim that he knowingly, intentionally protected a pedophile is false.”

The statement comes as the university faces pressure to remove a statue of Paterno outside Beaver Stadium. No decision has been made on the sculpture’s fate, according to the AP.

Read the full story at the Associated Press or USA Today. For more of Neon Tommy's coverage of the Penn State child sex abuse scandal, click here.

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